The Physiology of Holding Stormlight

[Fifth of Daybreak he/him]

That is not so. Even when Szeth isn't actively surgebinding, even if he's just holding the stormlight, there is decay, which was my point. I don't have the exact quote on me, I'll quote when I get home.

 

Just holding stormlight uses it, as it is a surrogate for oxygen and other metabolites in the body (you don't need to breathe when holding stormlight. This goes back to the efficacy of stormlight in individuals, even when at rest. 

 

Lets assume that 40L/min is the absolute maximum http://btc.montana.edu/olympics/physiology/pb01.html (as we have a decreased

g(rochar) =0.7 *g; Kal is far from a olympian mainly because the only exercise he'd done within the last year was 1 month of sparsely carrying a bridge at a calory intake of 1000/d, stormlight compensates for the rest)

 

You do know that I've made allof those calculations assuming that the heartrate is at 200 bpm? 

 

but lets take 50L/min throughput of the heart: this still means we are roughly 40s (assuming 5*resaturation of the entire blood). As we would need to pump roughly 30 L of blood past the point at which the target is.

 

And this whole calculation doesn't even take into account that the aortic arch has 3 offshouts for example which means that with one circulation only a small portion of the blood has traveled by the hand infact I am not able to find numbers here.

 

But this would roughly mean that at most 1/4 of the arterial throughput would reach the needed destination. I would estimate more like 1/8 to 1/12 of the throughput of 50L/min. (aorta ascend and descend ratio, etc you know better-edit)

 

so in actuality we are pumping about 5L/min past the right hand (which is a VERY conservative estimate (i guess more like 1L/minute).

 

Maybe you, seeming to be a MD or so, know how much blood is actually passed through the arteries in the hand (otherwise I will do the caluation (Bloodpressure -> estimated diameter of the combined arterial vessals=> amount of blod pumped past, but this would be very inacurate and tidious).

 

edit: adding a small remark

 

I think you're undercredditing Kaladin's physical shape. He did spend a good amount of time (approximately 4 years) in the army, and when he arrived at the Shattered Plains, they note he is still in very good physical condition. He then spends time training on the bridge. Not just sparsely carrying a bridge. On that note, bridge runs are hours a piece, one way. On its own, I would agree with you, but they spend hours a day training the bridge as well. They've also been more than a month. Way more. By the time they attempt the side carry for the first time, Kaladin has done more than 2 dozen bridge runs, which has to be more than a month, because they get a certain amount of rest time if they go on a bridge run. (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ilHpE5JZ9HeZyH6nnPDoJI04FlaB7IfJqBVLXayvqOA/edit?pli=1#)

 

I knew what you were using for heart rate, but you ignored the stroke volume aspect of it in your original post, which can be as much as 200ml, which is where the 40L calculation came from. 

 

This is still taking into consideration that it takes 5 cycles of blood to become saturated with Stormlight? Where are you getting that figure?  My original theory takes into account that stormlight is:

 

A:Compressed when it enters the bloodstream, meaning that there's more of it available for use when bound. 

 

B: Stormlight expands the blood vessels to their largest size. 

 

C: Stroke Volume and Heart Rate both immediately increase, increasing cardiac output. 

 

D: Because of the supernatural healing of Stormlight, the body can actually be pushed past its normal limits, and perform above them (blood vessel size, myocardial contractility, heart rate, muscle strength.)

 

Now, unlike in regular cardiovascular movement, you have some degree of control of stormlight. For instance:

Kaladin fights with Szeth, gets his arm cut. He directs the stormlight to his arm to heal it. He controls and shapes it.

 

Intent and perception have a lot to do with the magic systems in the Cosmere. Kaladin wants to perform a reverse lashing on his shield. He cognitively wills the stormlight to his hands, and then into the shield. As a reaction to this intent and cognitive direction, the stormlight compresses itself down and disolves into the bloodstream, and directs that super condensed stormlight to his hands. From there, it leaves through the hands and infuses the shield. There's no real need to have all the blood transport to his hands. 

 

I don't see the need to re saturate the entire blood stream for every action, the stormlight is going to permeate the body very quickly with the amount needed to perform whatever function is being carried out, the rest is being stored in the lungs, ready to move to where it needs to go. It has a response time of only a few seconds, as soon as it is needed. 

Why does the blood need to circulate 5 times for this to be feasible?   Why does the stormlight have to resaturate all the blood? My assumptions on the physiology, is that all the stormlight stays in the chest, other than what is minimally needed to sustain the body. Once the reserve of stormlight has been used (such as in the reverse lashing on the shield) the rest of the stormlight is used up by the body's natural metabolism by the time it reaches the heart again. 

 

Again, you're ignoring variables we have no way of knowing, and in the case of your recirculation stipulation, actually adding in a constant that I can find no real basis for that assumption. How much stormlight can 1ml of blood carry? How much further can the body dilate the vessels taking into account the supernatural healing? How much more blood can the heart pump when not under the constraint of normal myocardial elasticity? How much faster than normal can the heart pump with the help of stormlight?  

[Galladon he/him]

 

I knew what you were using for heart rate, but you ignored the stroke volume aspect of it in your original post, which can be as much as 200ml, which is where the 40L calculation came from. 

 

No in this case I skipped over the volume part integrating it in the relevant formulae.

 

Intent and perception have a lot to do with the magic systems in the Cosmere. Kaladin wants to perform a reverse lashing on his shield. He cognitively wills the stormlight to his hands, and then into the shield. As a reaction to this intent and cognitive direction, the stormlight compresses itself down and disolves into the bloodstream, and directs that super condensed stormlight to his hands. From there, it leaves through the hands and infuses the shield. There's no real need to have all the blood transport to his hands. 

 

if you can direct it, it cant be bound to blood cells, because if you can direct it into a focus you have to move every bound SL_bloodcell to this point, at which point you either accelerate bloodflow through certain parts of your arterial system (you cannot widen beyond a certain poin -lets say 2*d) or you actually reverse flow (which is again not possible).

chull to compressing parts of the stormlight, well no physical sytem works this way, and it seems way to taylored to explain away flaws in the theory- Arcom's razor.

 

 

 don't see the need to re saturate the entire blood stream for every action, the stormlight is going to permeate the body very quickly with the amount needed to perform whatever function is being carried out, the rest is being stored in the lungs, ready to move to where it needs to go. It has a response time of only a few seconds, as soon as it is needed. 

First off I'd say it's stored in the heart or general chest area, otherewise we would expect a much more drastic exhilation of SL while breathing, or it is actually stored in the tissue of the lungs. 

 

 

Why does the blood need to circulate 5 times for this to be feasible?   Why does the stormlight have to resaturate all the blood? My assumptions on the physiology, is that all the stormlight stays in the chest, other than what is minimally needed to sustain the body. Once the reserve of stormlight has been used (such as in the reverse lashing on the shield) the rest of the stormlight is used up by the body's natural metabolism by the time it reaches the heart again. 

If you want to apply physical laws to it, it wouldn't be able to selectively saturate, it would naturally diffuse into the blood like oxygen, this is where we are devided:

You say: lets store it in the lungs keep up a minimal buffer and give it the ability to be directed whereever.

I say: if your theory were true you wouldn't be able to choose to which degree SL would follow which physical law.

either you say you can control it, thereby eliminating the need for a theory at all

or you say you can't control  and the theory falls apart.

 

I don't think BS would give SL physical limitations like binding it to the bloodflow and afterward completely ignore basic physics by say MAGIC.

 

If you say Stormlight is seperate from the blood and simply uses the pathways in a metaphysical way, i can get behind it, but as soon as you bind it to the actual blood, you implicitly give it simily physical limitations as blood

 

As to my approach : I say under normal physical laws (tweeked-as slightly as possible) SL would need to behave similrly to oxigen. So SL in-> SL stored -> pressure of stored SL diffuses it into bloodstream-> equal distribution. This is how I imagine this approach would have to look, and thereby showing that it is unfeasible due to several aforementioned physical impossiblities.

 

 

Again, you're ignoring variables we have no way of knowing, and in the case of your recirculation stipulation, actually adding in a constant that I can find no real basis for that assumption. How much stormlight can 1ml of blood carry? How much further can the body dilate the vessels taking into account the supernatural healing? How much more blood can the heart pump when not under the constraint of normal myocardial elasticity? How much faster than normal can the heart pump with the help of stormlight?  

5* saturation is an arbitary number I dervived form the following: 

He feels it in his whole body but its proportionally much higher in his chest: Ice in body versus Storm in chest. if you set those in relation chest size /body size and ice / storm, this is a complete subjective thing: how much feels like a strom  I said 5.

 

His heart isn't faster, find 1 refferance where it seems like his heart goes at more than 200bpm an than mutiply it with lets say 150ml/beat  then you get 30l/min and then I rounded it up to 50l/min. When you have an actual circulatiory system you can up this value to 200L/min and it still wouldn't work, unless you control it.

 

Of course if you only have to transport one particle to a certain point in your cycle it works, but as I said before thats tayloring.

 

As to the saturationkoeff, this I simply added for completeness and set it to 1 so it becomes irrelavent. It simply some place holder if more advanced theoried had come along, it stands for the differance in containers (here chest vs blood) as I convert one into the other.

 

So I really don't like the idea of control since it's completely out of physical context. I think this is our most fundamental deiding line. I say since you can't control it like this it doesn't work because of... and you say I can control the SL flow so it works. and you are right in that case.

 

Since I have done nothing but citicize all day, here is my counter theory based on yours, which you may feel free to criticize .

 

SL is inhaled and stored in the lung issue and uses the bluudvassels as a cind of powergrid, an is not bound to blood. as in a powergid there is allways a slight current but the real draft is created as soon as you switch on an electrical device. so If you get a wound the SL will be used creating a hole that needs to be filled, which is a self regulating system with no need for exteriour control. The only control you have is to switch the light on and of (infusing lashing etc.).

[Cstryon he/him]

I think we should consider the metaphysical pathways and not just blood.

Doing awesome science as not my forte, understanding what you guys are saying if not beyond me though.

So maybe SL runs primarily through blood, replacing O2 and other stuff, supernaturally increasing the physical ability of the whole cardiovascular system.

And then, you focus it to certain tasks, it leaks out of the vessels, and flows metaphysically through the flesh, passing through cells to its destination, forgetting the blood flow. After this, any left over, absorbs back into the skin, to the blood. (iI'm pretty sure there was an example in one of the books where SL seemed to absorb into Kal's arm, though he still inhaled, like that motion just helped him do it.)

This way, the SL leaks out of the skin slower when at normal use, and gets used faster at focused use. The blood vessels being a better container than the rest.

Basically, I'm saying, I think you can both be right here.

(though iI do have to agree that many people tend to underestimate how fast your blood will circulate.)

[Fifth of Daybreak he/him]

if you can direct it, it cant be bound to blood cells, because if you can direct it into a focus you have to move every bound SL_bloodcell to this point, at which point you either accelerate bloodflow through certain parts of your arterial system (you cannot widen beyond a certain poin -lets say 2*d) or you actually reverse flow (which is again not possible).

 

 

Well, no, the rest of the stormlight bound blood cells are continuing to be used as metabolic fuel by the other cells. What I'm proposing is that you can direct the reserve of Stormlight to the area that needs it, whether it be for a certain wound that was received in WoR, or for surgebinding purposes. It's about a 2 second delay before there's a constant supply of stormlight to where it needs to be, and that can be extended until the reserve is run dry. No reason to divert all the blood. 

 

 

chull to compressing parts of the stormlight, well no physical sytem works this way, and it seems way to taylored to explain away flaws in the theory- Arcom's razor.

 

This actually has naturally occuring precedents. When you go scuba diving and start to get further below water, the pressure builds up, and the nitrogen in your blood is compressed, allowing your body to transport it more efficiently. The same is also true for Oxygen in higher altitudes. It's not as compressed, which is what makes the thin air, and causes people to lose their breath more quickly. That's why olympic athletes train at high altitudes, their blood responds to the anaerobic conditions and produce more blood in response, so it can carry more of the less dense oxygen.

 

 

First off I'd say it's stored in the heart or general chest area, otherewise we would expect a much more drastic exhilation of SL while breathing, or it is actually stored in the tissue of the lungs.  

 

 

 

 

If we're assuming this, we're pretty much ignoring all the physical laws concerning how things move and are stored in the body, or it would have to compress the stormlight to fit into the tissues. We also have plenty of references of stormlight dissipating more quickly when people are breathing.  The lung tissues aren't designed to store things, they are simply an area where diffusion can occur between the lungs and the capillaries in the alveoli. The blood comes unoxygenated through the pulmonary artery and hits the capillaries in the alveoli, and the CO2 diffuses across to the lungs, while the Oxygen diffuses into the capillaries, which then moves into the pulmonary vein. (Fun fact, the pulmonary artery is the only artery to carry unoxygenated blood, and the pulmonary vein is the only vein in the body that moves oxygenated blood.)  As for storing it in the other areas of the chest, that makes it less available to be transported throughout the body, whether or not its through the blood or through the metaphysical pathways. The lungs are the quickest way to get substances into the body, other than an arterial line. Even a central venous line would put substances into the heart, then the lungs, then the heart again. 

 

 

If you want to apply physical laws to it, it wouldn't be able to selectively saturate, it would naturally diffuse into the blood like oxygen, this is where we are devided:

You say: lets store it in the lungs keep up a minimal buffer and give it the ability to be directed whereever.

I say: if your theory were true you wouldn't be able to choose to which degree SL would follow which physical law.

either you say you can control it, thereby eliminating the need for a theory at all

or you say you can't control  and the theory falls apart.

 

 

 

Except that we do have two distinctly separate uses for it documented in the books. The first is the unconscious control of it diffusing through the body to heal wounds.

 

Such as Shallan healing her feet with the stormlight during the time spent in Tvlakvs wagons.

 

The other is when actively surgebinding, like the full lashing into the shield, or

Kaladin healing a shardblade cut. Although I won't put too much on this, since we don't definitively know if this is something that Kaladin actually should have been able to do. My own personal theory is that Kaladin is accessing regrowth somehow due to his surgeons training, but that without access to the progression surge, you normally would not be able to direct stormlight healing like this. If that's the case, it does support your ideas behind the flaws in my theory.  

However, being able to direct the stormlight for active surgebinding I feel doesn't stretch the theory to the point of breaking. 

 

 

I don't think BS would give SL physical limitations like binding it to the bloodflow and afterward completely ignore basic physics by say MAGIC.

 

If you say Stormlight is seperate from the blood and simply uses the pathways in a metaphysical way, i can get behind it, but as soon as you bind it to the actual blood, you implicitly give it simily physical limitations as blood

 

As to my approach : I say under normal physical laws (tweeked-as slightly as possible) SL would need to behave similrly to oxigen. So SL in-> SL stored -> pressure of stored SL diffuses it into bloodstream-> equal distribution. This is how I imagine this approach would have to look, and thereby showing that it is unfeasible due to several aforementioned physical impossiblities.

 

 

The blood is not a hard point on me for this theory, but it makes the most sense for it to affect the body physiologically on a global scale. As for the several physical impossibilities, Until my last post, I don't think I accounted for any of your counterpoints using magic handwaving. Would you mind relisting the impossibilities that you're referencing? I had thought I was fairly thorough addressing the various counterpoints you have raised.  I do also want to reiterate that I don't believe the healing factor is an acceleration of natural processes, and it similar to Feruchemical gold. It just requires the stormlight reaching the area that required healing. 

 

 

5* saturation is an arbitary number I dervived form the following: 

He feels it in his whole body but its proportionally much higher in his chest: Ice in body versus Storm in chest. if you set those in relation chest size /body size and ice / storm, this is a complete subjective thing: how much feels like a strom  I said 5.

 

 

I don't see how this doesn't work. The body has many natural processes that respond to stimuli within the body. If that stimuli is to push stormlight out of the body through a certain point, we've got an immediate pouring of stormlight from that area of the body, and the response to that is to continue to fill that hole, as you put it, with stormlight (moving from an area of high concentration to an area of low concentration.) The body can do some pretty amazing things on its own, especially in the cardiovascular system. It can isolate areas that need extra oxygen and send it there, during focused exercise. I don't see it as much of a stretch that the body is responding to that need, and sending a larger amount of stormlight there to fill the need, in which you've only got a 2 second delay going from small stormlight infusion to large outpouring of stormlight. The body can respond to this need by actively dilating and constricting blood vessels to get more circulating stormlight to where it is needed. No tailoring, just the body doing its normal thing. The only active control is deciding where to release the stormlight from. (Even this is an imperfect approximation, because it is only taking into account the way Kaladin surgebinders. I imagine as I learn more about other surges, it will have to be modified. Lightweaving in particular seems to be strange and incongruent with this.)

 

 

His heart isn't faster, find 1 refferance where it seems like his heart goes at more than 200bpm an than mutiply it with lets say 150ml/beat  then you get 30l/min and then I rounded it up to 50l/min. When you have an actual circulatiory system you can up this value to 200L/min and it still wouldn't work, unless you control it.

 

What in particular doesn't work. I'm not sure what you're referencing here. The time limit you proposed can be met with a normal, non-magically augmented circulatory system. 

 

 

SL is inhaled and stored in the lung issue and uses the bluudvassels as a cind of powergrid, an is not bound to blood. as in a powergid there is allways a slight current but the real draft is created as soon as you switch on an electrical device. so If you get a wound the SL will be used creating a hole that needs to be filled, which is a self regulating system with no need for exteriour control. The only control you have is to switch the light on and of (infusing lashing etc.).

 

 

 

It really doesn't seem we're that far off as far as the theory goes. My main problems with yours is there's no place to store stormlight in the lung tissue, other than the open space in the lungs.  Most of the rest of this seems to be exactly what I'm proposing, just not using blood as a transport agent. I also think you were overplaying the degree of control to which I was proposing a surgebinder has. Again, it seems like were proposing the same thing. The only control I was referencing was that of surgebinding, and the weird Kaladin even referenced above. 

 

 

Also, the compression aspect of my theory also isn't central, but its a way of compensating for the transport limitations considering we don't know how efficiently stormlight could theoretically bind to blood. If the stormlight could not be efficiently transported by blood cells, I'd side with you, but given that it's an unknown variable, I'd rather have a theory based in medical science then just assume magic.

Btw, do you have any formal medical training? At first I had assumed you had due to how well you were arguing, just not to the degree of training I had on cardiology and pulmonology, but now I'm thinking that you fooled me with your logic lol (Not in a bad way.) If you don't have any medical training, I'm very impressed at the level of medical knowledge that you have, which definitely seems to be much higher than an average lay person. 

 

Oh, i forgot one thing on my last post.

 

 

 

You,seeming to be a MD or so...

 

You flatter me! I'm only a lowly paramedic, but that is latin for "beside doctor."

[Cstryon he/him]

Argument aside. Since I'm more familiar with behavioral health/substance abuse, I started thinking what addiction and physical dependence could do to a surgebinder. Much like an Allomantic savant, having enough stormlight to sustain constant use, I could see some physiological changes.

The heart swells, becoming much larger, and more than a normal user, has more volume moved with every beat. The blood vessels dilate to much larger to compensate for the higher stroke volume. The healing factor increases (Think Deadpool.). All five senses become intense, but do to the healing factor, is not as painful as Tin Savantism. Meaning, no need for the eye covers, and better tolerance to temperature. Tactile tasks become dangerous, meaning broken bottles, and less graceful moves, at least until the mental speed effects increase to make the user graceful enough to compensate.

Being cut off leads to real physical and psychological withdrawal. Depression, numbness, poor heart function. Even though the healing factor would fix the physical damage, being suddenly cut off might not allow the body and mind to adjust back to remembering how to function normal. The extreme exhaustion would lead to passing out, and possibly coma.

Physical therapy, psychiatric treatment and counseling would be required to rehabilitate the stormlight addict.

This is all speculation using my experience with stimulant, and opiate addicts, plus what we saw with Spooks use, and what happens when he was cut off.

Considering the changes the body would likely make, even with the healing, I bet the mental shock that would come from being cut off could lead to no will to live. This causing the body to shut down, and likely death from the psychological stress.

Thoughts? Trevor, have you had many calls to behavioral health crisis emergencies?

[Fifth of Daybreak he/him]

Most of the behavioral calls we take are 72 hour holds for suicidal thoughts, but I've taken a few. I think you've pretty well nailed it, and brought up a few interesting points as well. And I think we can even go as far to say that withdrawal from Stormlight in the case of a surgebinding savant could be fatal. 

 

Left Ventricular Hypertrophy, which is the enlarging of the left side of the heart, the chamber that pumps blood to the rest of the body, is a condition where it grows too large to function, and stretches its elasticity out. I think that with constant stormlight, as you said, it would maintain that and have no issue, but as soon as you stop using, the symptoms would start. 

You're probably a much better source for behavioral sides of things, but I think the physical damage that would begin would lead to life threatening conditions, that would have a high mortality rate within a year of being cut off. Left ventricular hypertrophy is usually a precursor to Congestive Heart Failure, and I don't think that medicine has evolved enough on Roshar to deal with that sort of cardiac condition. 

[Cstryon he/him]

Well, with what my Level 3 crisis facility is equipped to handle, you can expect a call from me, and a full repprt

27 year old male, with 4 years of daily constant stormlight abuse. Presents with hypotension, shock like symptoms, and DTS ideations.